Asiatic Religions Proclaim Their Esoterism Openly -

This is not the first warning received by the “theological schools.” which, however, no doubt knew it from the beginning, as did Clemens of Alexandria and others. But if it be so they will profit still less by it, as the admission would involve more for them than the mere sacredness and dignity of the established faith.

But, it may also be asked, why is it that the Asiatic religions, which have nothing of this sort to conceal and which proclaim quite openly the Esoterism of their doctrines, follow the same course? It is simply this: While the present, and no doubt enforced silence of the Church on this subject relates merely to the external or theoretical form of the Bible - the unveiling of the secrets of which would have involved no practical harm, had they been explained from the first - it is an entirely different question with Eastern Esoterism and Symbology. The grand central figure of the Gospels would have remained as unaffected by the symbolism of the Old Testament being revealed, as would that of the Founder of Buddhism had the Brahmanical writings of the Puranas, that preceded his birth, all been shown to be allegorical. Jesus of Nazareth, moreover, would have gained more than he would have lost had he been presented as a simple mortal left to be judged on his own precepts and merits, instead of being fathered on Christendom as a God whose many utterances and acts are now so open to criticism. On the other hand the symbols and allegorical sayings that veil the grand truths of Nature in the Vedas, the Brahmanas, the Upanishads and especially in the Lamaist Chagpa Thogmed and other works, are quite of a different nature, and far more complicated in their secret meaning. While the Biblical glyphs have nearly all a triune foundation, those of the Eastern books are worked on the septenary principle. They are (Page 54) as closely related to the mysteries of Physics and Physiology, as to Psychism and the transcendental nature of cosmic elements and Theogony; unriddled they would prove more than injurious to the uninitiated; delivered into the hands of the present generations in their actual state of physical and intellectual development, in the absence of spirituality and even of practical morality, they would become absolutely disastrous.

Nevertheless the secret teachings of the sanctuaries have not remained without witness; they have been made immortal in various ways. They have burst upon the world in hundreds of volumes full of the quaint, head-breaking phraseology of the Alchemist; they have flashed like irrepressible cataracts of Occult mystic lore from the pens of poets and bards. Genius alone had certain privileges in those dark ages when no dreamer could offer the world even a fiction without suiting his heaven and his earth to biblical text. To genius alone it was permitted in those centuries of mental blindness, when the fear of the “Holy Office” threw a thick veil over every cosmic and psychic truth, to reveal unimpeded some of the grandest truths of Initiation. Whence did Ariosto, in his Orlando Furioso, obtain his conception of that valley of the Moon, where after our death we can find the ideas and images of all that exists on earth? How came Dante to imagine the many descriptions given in his Inferno - a new Johannine Apolcalypse, a true Occult Revelation in verse - his visit and communion with the Souls of the Seven Spheres? In poetry and satire every Occult truth has been welcomed - none has been recognised as serious. The Comte de Gabalis is better known and appreciated than Porphyry and Iamblichus. Plato’s mysterious Atlantis is proclaimed a fiction, while Noah’s Deluge is to this day on the brain of certain Archaeologists, who scoff at the archetypal world of Marcel Palingenius’ Zodiac, and would resent as a personal injury being asked to discuss the four worlds of Mercury Trismegistus - the Archetypal, the Spiritual, the Astral and the Elementary, with three others behind the opened scene. Evidently civilised society is still but half prepared for the revelation. Hence, the Initiates will never give out the whole secret, until the bulk of mankind has changed its actual nature and is better prepared for truth. Clemens Alexandrinus was positively right in saying, “It is requisite to hide in a mystery the wisdom spoken” - which the “Sons of God” teach.

That Wisdom, as will be seen, relates to all the primeval truths delivered to the first Races, the “Mind-born,” by the “Builders” of the Universe themselves.

The Wisdom-Religion - (Page 55) There was in every ancient country having claims to civilisation, an Esoteric Doctrine, a system which was designated WISDOM [ The writings extant in olden times often personified Wisdom as an emanation and associate of the Creator. Thus we have the Hindu Buddha, the Babylonian Nebo, the Thoth of Memphis, the Hermes of Greece: also the female divinities, Neitha, Metis, Athena, and the Gnostic potency Achamoth or Sophia. The Samaritan Pentateuch denominated the Book of Genesis, Akamouth, or Wisdom, and two remnants of old treatises, the Wisdom of Solomon and the Wisdom of Jesus, relate to the same matters. The Book of Mashalim - the Discourses of Proverbs of Solomon - thus personifies Wisdom as the auxiliary of the Creator. In the Secret Wisdom of the East that auxiliary is found collectively in the first emanations of Primeval Light, the Seven Dhyani-Chohans, who have been shown to be identical with the “Seven Spirits of the Presence” of the Roman Catholics.] and those who were devoted to its prosecution were first denominated sages, or wise men. . . Pythagoras termed this system ηγνωσις των δντων, the Gnosis or Knowledge of things that are. Under the noble designation of WISDOM, the ancient teachers, the sages of India, the magians of Persia and Babylon, the seers and prophets of Israel, the hierophants of Egypt and Arabia, and the philosophers of Greece and the West, included all knowledge which they considered as essentially divine; classifying a part as esoteric and the remainder as exterior. The Rabbis called the exterior and secular series the Mercavah, as being the body or vehicle which contained the higher knowledge. [ New Platonism and Alchemy, p.6.]

Later on, we shall speak of the law of silence imposed on eastern chelâs.

Yet there must have been some very good reasons for it, since from the very dawn of History such has been the policy of every Hierophant and “Master.” Pythagoras, the first Adept and real Scientist in pre-Christian Europe, is accused of having taught in public the immobility of the earth, and the rotary motion of the stars around it, while he was declaring to his privileged Adepts his belief in the motion of the Earth as a planet, and in the heliocentric system. The reasons for such secresy, however, are many and were never made a mystery of. The chief cause as given in Isis Unveiled. It may now be repeated.

From the very day when the first mystic, taught by the first Instructor of the “divine Dynasties” of the early races, was taught the means of communication between this world and the worlds of the invisible host, between the sphere of matter and that of pure spirit, he concluded that to abandon this mysterious science to the desecration, willing or unwilling, of the profane rabble - was to lose it. An abuse of it might lead mankind to speedy destruction; it was like surrounding a group of children with explosive substances, and furnishing them with matches. The first divine Instructor initiated but a select few, and these kept silence with the multitudes. They recognised their “God” and each Adept felt the great “SELF” within himself. The Atman, the Self, the mighty Lord and Protector, once that man knew him as the “I am,” the “Ego Sum,” the “Asmi,” showed his full power to him who could recognise the “still small voice.” From the days of the primitive man described by the first Vedic poet, down to our modern age, there has not been a philosopher worthy of that name, who did not carry in the silent sanctuary of his heart the grand and mysterious truth. If initiated, he learnt it as a sacred science; if otherwise then, like Socrates, repeating to himself as well as his fellow-men, the noble injunction, “O man, know thyself,” he succeeded in recognising his God within himself.

The Key of Practical Theurgy -

(Page 57) “Ye are Gods,” the king-psalmist tells us, and we find Jesus reminding the scribes that this expression was addressed to other mortal men , claiming for themselves the same privilege without any blasphemy. And as a faithful echo, Paul, while asserting that we are all “the temple of the living God,” cautiously remarked elsewhere that after all these things are only for the “wise,” and it is “unlawful” to speak of them.[ ii. 317, 318. Many verbal alterations from the original text of Isis Unveiled were made by H.P.B. in her quotations therefrom, and these are followed throughout.]

Some of the reasons for this secresy may be given.

The fundamental law and master-key of practical Theurgy, in its chief applications to the serious study of cosmic and sidereal, of psychic and spiritual, mysteries was, and still is, that which was called by the Greek Neoplatonist “Theophania.” In its generally-accepted meaning this is “communication between the Gods (or God) and those initiated mortals who are spiritually fit to enjoy such an intercourse.” Esoterically, however, it signifies more than this. For it is not only the presence of a God, but an actual - howbeit temporary - incarnation, the blending, so to say, of the personal Deity, the Higher Self, with man - its representative or agent on earth. As a general law, the Highest God, the Over-soul of the human being (Atma-Buddhi), only overshadows the individual during his life, for purposes of instruction and revelation; or as Roman Catholics - who erroneously call that Over-soul the “Guardian Angel” - would say, “It stands outside and watches.” But in the case of the theophanic mystery, it incarnates itself in the Theurgist for purposes of revelation. When the incarnation is temporary, during those mysterious trances or “ecstasy,” which Plotinus defined as

The liberation of the mind from its finite consciousness, becoming one and identified with the Infinite,

this sublime condition is very short. The human soul, being the offspring or emanation of its God, the “Father and the Son” become one, “the divine fountain flowing like a stream into its human bed.” [ Proclus claims to have experienced this sublime ecstasy six times during his mystic life: Porphyry asserts that Appollonius of Tyana was thus united four times to his deity - a statement which we believe to be a mistake, since Apollonius was a Nirmanakaya (divine incarnation - not Avatara) - and he (Porphyry) only once, when over sixty years of age. Theophany (or the actual appearance of a God to man), Theopathy (or “assimilation of divine nature”), and Theopneusty (inspiration, or rather the mysterious power to hear orally the teachings of a God) have never been rightly understood.] In exceptional cases, however, the mystery becomes complete; the (Page 58) Word is made Flesh in real fact, the individual becoming divine in the full sense of the term, since his personal God has made of him his permanent life-long tabernacle - “the temple of God,” as Paul says.

Now that which is meant here by the personal God of Man is, of course, not his seventh Principle alone, as per se and in essence that is merely a bean of the infinite Ocean of Light. In conjunction with our Divine Soul, the Buddhi, it cannot be called a Duad, as it otherwise might, since, though formed from Atma and Buddhi (the two higher Principles), the former is no entity but an emanation from the Absolute, and indivisible in reality from it. The personal God is not the Monad, but indeed the prototype of the latter, what for want of a better term we call the manifested Karanatma [ Karana Sharira is the “causal” body and is sometimes said to be the “personal God.” And so it is, in one sense.] (Causal Soul), one of the “seven” and chief reservoirs of the human Monads or Egos. The latter are gradually formed and strengthened during their incarnation-cycle by constant additions of individuality from the personalities in which incarnates that androgynous, half-spiritual, half-terrestrial principle, partaking of both heaven and earth, called by the Vedantins Jiva and Vijnanamaya Kosha, and by the Occultists the Manas (mind); that, in short, which uniting itself partially with the Monad, incarnates in each new birth. In perfect unity with its (seventh) Principle, the Spirit unalloyed, it is the divine Higher Self, as every student of Theosophy knows. After every new incarnation Buddhi-Manas culls, so to say the aroma of the flower called personality, the purely earthly residue of which its dregs - is left to fade out as a shadow. This is the most difficult - because so transcendentally metaphysical - portion of the doctrine.

As is repeated many a time in this and other works, it is not the Philosophers, Sages, and Adepts of antiquity who can ever be charged with idolatry. It is they in fact, who, recognising divine unity, were the only ones, owing to their initiation into the mysteries of Esotericism, to understand correctly the υπσνσια(hyponea), or under-meaning of the anthropomorphism of the so-called Angels, Gods, and Spiritual Beings of every kind. Each, worshipping the one Divine Essence that pervades the whole world of Nature, reverenced, but never worshipped or idolised, any of these “Gods,” whether high or low - not even his own personal Deity, of which he was a Ray, and to whom he appealed.[ This would be in one sense Self-worship.]

The Ladder of Being -

(Page 59) The holy Triad emanates from the One, and is the Tetraktys; the gods, daimons, and souls are an emanation of the Triad. Heroes and men repeat the hierarchy in themselves.

Thus said Metrodorus of Chios, the Pythagorean, the latter part of the sentence meaning that man has within himself the seven pale reflections of the seven divine Hierarchies; his Higher Self is, therefore, in itself but the refracted beam of the direct Ray. He who regards the latter as an Entity, in the usual sense of the term, is one of the “infidels and atheists,” spoken of by Epicurus, for he fastens on that God “the opinions of the multitude” - an anthropomorphism of the grossest kind. [“The Gods exist,” said Epicurus, “but they are not what the hoi polloi (the multitude) suppose them to be. He is not an infidel or atheist who denies the existence of Gods whom the multitude worship, but he is such who fastens on the Gods the opinions of the multitude.” ] The Adept and the Occultist know that “what are styled the Gods are only the first principles” (Aristotle). None the less they are intelligent, conscious, and living “Principles,” the Primary Seven Lights manifested from Light unmanifested - which to us is Darkness. They are the Seven - exoterically four - Kumaras or “Mind-Born Sons” of Brahma. And it is they again, the Dhyan Chohans, who are the prototypes in the aeonic eternity of lower Gods and hierarchies of divine Beings, at the lowest end of which ladder of being are we - men.

Thus perchance Polytheism, when philosophically understood, may be a degree higher than even the Monotheism of the Protestant, say, who limits and conditions the Deity in whom he persists in seeing the Infinite, but whose supposed actions make of that “Absolute and Infinite” the most absurd paradox in Philosophy. From this standpoint Roman Catholicism itself is immeasurably higher and more logical than Protestantism, though the Roman Church has been pleased to adopt the exotericism of the heathen “multitude” and to reject the Philosophy of pure Esotericism.

Thus every mortal has his immortal counterpart, or rather his Archetype, in heaven. This means that the former is indissolubly united to the latter, in each of his incarnations, and for the duration of the cycle of births; only it is by the spiritual and intellectual Principle in him, entirely distinct from the lower self, never through the earthly personality. Some of these are even liable to break the union altogether, in case of absence in the moral individual of binding, viz.,of spiritual ties. Truly, as Paracelsus puts it in his quaint, tortured (Page 60) phraseology, man with his three (compound) Spirits is suspended like a foetus by all three to the matrix of the Macrocosm; the thread which holds him united being the “Thread-Soul,” Sutratma, and Taijasa (the “Shining”) of the Vedantins. And it is through this spiritual and intellectual Principle in man, though Taijasa - the Shining, “because it has the luminous internal organ as its associate” - that man is thus united to his heavenly prototype, never through his lower inner self or Astral Body, for which there remains in most cases nothing but to fade out.

Occultism, or Theurgy, teaches the means of producing such union. But it is the actions of man - his personal merit alone - that can produce it on earth, or determine its duration. This lasts from a few seconds - a flash - to several hours, during which time the Theurgist or Theophanist is that overshadowing “God” himself; hence he becomes endowed for the time being with relative omniscience and omnipotence. With such perfect (divine) Adepts as Buddha [ Esoteric, as exoteric, Buddhism rejects the theory that Gautama was an incarnation or Avatara of Vishnu, but teaches the doctrine as herein explained. Every man has in him the materials, if not the conditions, for theophanic intercourse and Theopneusty, the inspiring “God” being, however, in every case, his own Higher Self, or divine prototype.] and others such a hypostatical state of avataric condition may last during the whole life; whereas in the case of full Initiates, who have not yet reached the perfect state of Jivanmukta, [ One entirely and absolutely purified, and having nothing in common with earth except his body.] Theopneusty, when in full sway, results for the high Adept in a full recollection of everything seen, heard, or sensed.

Taijasa has fruition of the supersensible.[ Mandukyopanishad, 4.]

For one less perfect it will end only in a partial, indistinct remembrance; while the beginner has to face in the first period of his psychic experiences a mere confusion, followed by a rapid and finally complete oblivion of the mysteries seen during this super-hypnotic condition. The degree of recollection, when one returns to his waking state and physical senses, depends on his spiritual and psychic purification, the greatest enemy of spiritual memory being man’s physical brain the organ of his sensuous nature.

The above states are described for a clearer comprehension of terms used in this work. There are so many and such various conditions and states that even a Seer is liable to confound one with the other.

This is one of the several mysteries of being and incarnation. Another is that when an Adept reaches during his lifetime that state of holiness and purity that makes him “equal to the Angels,” then at death his apparitional or astral body becomes as solid and tangible as was the late body, and is transformed into the real man. [ See the explanations given on the subject in “The Elixir of Life,” by G.M. (From a Chela’s Diary), Five Years of Theosophy.] The old physical body, falling off like the cast-off serpent’s skin, the body of the “new” man remains either visible or, at the option of the Adept, disappears from view, surrounded as it is by the Akashic shell that screens it. In the latter case there are three ways open to the Adept:

(1) He may remain in the earth’s sphere (Vayu or Kama-loka), in that ethereal locality concealed from human sight save during flashes of clairvoyance. In this case his astral body, owing to its great purity and spirituality, having lost the conditions required for Akashic light (the nether or terrestrial ether) to absorb its semi-material particles, the Adept will have to remain in the company of disintegrating shells - doing no good or useful work. This, of course, cannot be.

(2) He can by a supreme effort of will merge entirely into, and get united with, his Monad. By doing so, however, we would (a) deprive his Higher Self of posthumous Samadhi - a bliss which is not real Nirvana - the astral, however pure, being too earthly for such state; and (b) he would thereby open himself to Karmic law; the action being, in fact, the outcome of personal selfishness - of reaping the fruits produced by and for oneself - alone.

(3) The Adept has the option of renouncing conscious Nirvana and (Page 62) rest, to work on earth for the good of mankind. This he can do in a two-fold way: either, as above said, by consolidating his astral body into physical appearance, he can reassume the self-same personality; or he can avail himself of an entirely new physical body, whether that of a newly-born infant or - as Shânkarâcharya is reported to have done with the body of a dead Rajah - by entering a deserted sheath,” and living in it as long as he chooses. This is what is called “continuous existence.” The Section entitled “The Mystery about Buddha” will throw additional light on this theory, to the profane incomprehensible, or to the generality simply absurd. Such is the doctrine taught, everyone having the choice of either fathoming it still deeper, or of leaving it unnoticed.

The above is simply a small portion of what might have been given in Isis Unveiled, had the time come then, as it has now. One cannot study and profit by Occult Science, unless one gives himself up to it - heart, soul, and body. Some of its truths are too awful, too dangerous, for the average mind. None can toy and play with such terrible weapons with impunity. Therefore it is, as St.Paul has it, “unlawful” to speak of them. Let us accept the reminder and talk only of that which is “lawful.”

The quotation on p. 56 relates, moreover, only to psychic or spiritual Magic. The practical teachings of Occult Science are entirely different, and few are the strong minds fitted for them. As to ecstasy, and such like kinds of self-illumination, this may be obtained by oneself and without any teacher or initiation, for ecstasy is reached by an inward command and control of Self over the physical Ego; as to obtaining mastery over the forces of Nature, this requires a long training, or the capacity of one born a “natural Magician.” Meanwhile, those who possess neither of the requisite qualifications are strongly advised to limit themselves to purely spiritual development. But even this is difficult, as the first necessary qualification is an unshakable belief in one’s own powers and the Deity within oneself; otherwise a man would simply develop into an irresponsible medium. Throughout the whole mystic literature of the ancient world we detect the same idea of spiritual Esoterism, that the personal God exists within, nowhere outside, the worshipper. That personal Deity is no vain breath, or a fiction, but an immortal Entity, the Initiator of the Initiates, now that the heavenly or Celestial Initiators of primitive humanity - the Shishta of the preceding cycles - are no more among us. Like an undercurrent, rapid and clear, it runs without mixing its crystalline purity with the muddy troubled waters of dogmatism, an enforced anthropomorphic Deity and religious intolerance.